


it's bpd, baby

by godlet



Series: binder#??? universe [2]
Category: Danny Phantom
Genre: Borderline Personality Disorder, Brief mentions of child abuse, Deaf Character, Dũng is vietnamese, Gen, Nonbinary Character, OC Family Day - Tumblr, Queerplatonic Relationships, Trans Character, because the foster system in america is asian-generalizing shit, brief mentions of polyamory, li is korean, li's mom is filipino, p.s. li is a plant witch
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-09
Updated: 2016-04-09
Packaged: 2018-05-30 21:22:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,206
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6441268
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/godlet/pseuds/godlet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>LI: isn’t it amazing!! six continents, seven billion people on the planet, and a whole lifetime of choices and outcomes and in this particular string of decisions, in this point in time, out of everyone i get to meet, i got lucky enough to know you</p><p>DAN: thats sweet? unless its sarcastic ? ?</p>
            </blockquote>





	it's bpd, baby

**Author's Note:**

> This thing? On Tumblr? About OC Family Day April 9th? I don't really know?
> 
> This is kind of a chapter of binder#??? that didn't fit anywhere so I put it off to the side within a series.

 

"Represent your feminine presenting non-binary peeps," Li hums as he glides another swatch of lipstick on the back of his hand. "And don't forget to fall a little bit in love with everyone smiling today..."

 

Or resent them for existing at all.

 

It was an extreme, but every single emotion of his was extreme. He wasn’t just angry; he was fucking infuriated. He wasn’t just happy; he was ecstatic with mania.

 

He wasn’t just in love; he was obsessed. Drugged. Haunted. It didn’t even have to be identified as love to be nearly overwhelming in nature.

 

Finally settling on a light peach lip stain that would bring out the soft brown highlights in his hair, Li carefully applies some to his puckered lips. They were thin, just like the rest of him, but he knows very well that a little color goes a long way in overall presentation.

 

The delicate smell of melted wax and rose water permeates the modest bedroom, some of it being sucked out the open, screen-less window. On the white sill is the lightly fluttering leaves of many small potted plants, surely a fire hazard within the apartment building. On the floor around it is an army of larger plants, each shoved as closely to the sunlight as possible. Some are particularly placed precariously in the more shadowy corners of the room.

 

Li picks his way carefully over from his vanity to his dresser, bare feet tip-toeing around his many flourishing plant children. His hands habitually brush against some of them, although his attention is focused solely on his overflowing clothes compartments.

 

“Hmmm...” The sixteen-year-old taps his chin in contemplation. Dress up or dress down? Pants or no pants? He kind of likes the idea of that ivory dress shoved up under that pair of brown boots, but he also really likes the look of ‘lots of makeup but not a respectable amount of clothing in sight.’

 

Droopy, earth-toned clothes that look like they belong on a grunge model and a face full of pinks and creams just spoke to him, you know?

 

 _Danny Fenton,_ his mind coos. _Blue eyes with perpetual bags._ He lets it. _That stupidly adorable hoodie-jacket combo that he never stops wearing._

 

Li’s fingers drum a manic tune on the wood of the furniture, his eyes roving indecisively over all of his choices. He _really_ shouldn’t let people take him shopping so often. Especially not when they end up at those cheap bargain bins that you have to dig in for ten minutes before finding a single scrap that was worth the two-dollar-deal the shitty paper sign boasted. There really were too many of those around here.

 

In the end, he shrugs, tugging the roughed-up looking boots from their frankly badly thought out place amongst his clothes, knocking over a pile of pants while he’s at it. He plays a silent game of _eenie-meenie-mighnie-mo_ before grabbing a pair that was dark green and slightly too big on him.

 

He makes his way back over to his vanity, stopping in front of the full-length mirror set on his bedroom door. He snags a previously worn shirt with cartoon ghosts on it while he’s there, giving it a test sniff just to be sure.

 

Yup – still fresh enough to not smell like _death._

 

Li giggles softly as he tugs off his underclothes to start anew. The nickname ‘ghost boy’ _ghosts_ across his mind briefly, but he doesn’t spend too much time pondering as to why the word death makes him automatically think of Danny.

 

It’s best just to let it lie until he can’t ignore the sleeping dogs anymore.

 

Dressed and nearly ready, Li runs a brush quickly through his light brown hair. It’s doing that stupid floaty thing where it looks like it’s thinking about frizzing, but only gets halfway there. It hasn’t been washed yet today, but he didn’t get that much sleep last night, so he spent more time flitting about on the internet than smushing his face and scalp to a pillow to collect oil.

 

The Korean boy _tsks_ as he notes how his dark brown roots are starting to show. Honestly – it was one thing to have to live with wispy straight hair, but it was a whole other can of worms when it was fast growing to boot. If only he liked the way he looked with dark hair.

 

Li loosely mimes stabbing himself in the eye socket with the fake ornate comb in his hand.

 

Oh well. Time to bleach soon.

 

He exits his room, taking the time to shove all of his shit into his pockets. Goddamn, he loves pockets. He doesn’t get them often enough, so he appreciates every second that he can spend with them. There’s a running gag with his sophomore friends that if the clothing stores ever got a ‘male’ line of clothing that included dresses, then a whole lot more people would have cute clothes _and_ pockets.

 

The tall high schooler pads quietly through the house, boots in one hand, coming across his foster mother in the linoleum tile kitchen. She was doing something with watercolors today, the painting in front of her coming along nicely, just like every masterpiece she makes.

 

“Mayat,” Li speaks quietly, coming around behind her to poke his nose in her business. “What are you working on now?”

 

 _“Tumahimik, anak.”_ Mayat hisses, her eyes focused and sharp just like her spoken Tagalog. “I am working hard.”

 

“Oh,” Li whispers back sheepishly, having been told to be quiet. He can’t tell if the shot in his heart was from being called ‘son’ or from being reprimanded. “Sorry. I’ll be going now.”

 

Mayat nods, squinting at her half-finished project with a hint of disdain mixed with copious amounts of frustration, confusion, and love.

 

Such is the life of an artist.

 

Mayat’s home was on the near outskirts of Amity Park, in an _almost_ shabby apartment building. It was like shabby-chic or something. It borders some of the docks of Lake Michigan, and was a brisk walk (or run, depending on how fast you wanted to get there) to the local Chinatown.

 

Not that every single Asian person in Amity Park frequents Chinatown – it was just a safer alternative to some of the white-dominated and possibly racist places that they could go. If a community was already set up, then why bother trying to sort through the crap of other places?

 

Li doesn’t know if Mayat is actually his foster mother’s name, but that was what she’d asked him to call her. Her behavior was the least worrisome of his past foster homes, however; just thinking about the last one, where he and Dũng had lived –

 

Well, the less said about that, the better. There was also this blip in his memory that was surely from some form of trauma, which makes him feel particularly blasé and detached about the possibility of losing his mind.

 

Quoth thy raven named Danny: _Whatever._

 

Speaking of his only foster brother, Dũng, Li was on his way to the Vietnamese man’s apartment in Chinatown. After the hell of… whatever happened to them in the last home they were shoved into, the two had stuck together despite Dũng becoming a legal adult and moving as far away from those areas tainted with poisoned memories as possible.

 

Of course, due to America’s generally _awful_ (emphasis, here) foster system, they were incredibly used to being foisted off on the nearest and most available Asian person. Didn’t matter if they were Chinese, Laotian, Mongolian, Japanese, Pakistani, Indian, Korean, Iranian – well, you get the point. America is full of Asian-generalizing bullshit, and the Asian foster kids get some brunt of that.

 

And if you happened to have a perfectly happy, ‘normal’ foster home experience? Spectacular. Keep those good feelings to your damn self, though, because people like Li were both pissed and mentally scarred. No pun intended.

 

Then again, if none of that _bullshittery_ had happened, then Li wouldn’t have met such a swell guy. No, literally – the Vietnamese man was swollen as fuck. He works out like somebody killed his family and he was training for his entire life to become a master of Vovinam and seek violent vengeance.

 

Nothing so dramatic had happened, however – Dũng was just an awfully prompt and habitual creature who had a lot of energy and big, bad feelings that he needed to work out. Physically. With lots of sweat.

 

Li spends their time walking to Chinatown breathing in the early morning air and considering buying some food to bring to the apartment. It wasn’t to be nice or anything – Dũng could get his own damn food. They were just hoping to soften the impact of the certain… _discussion_ they want to have with their foster brother.

 

Hmm, yes… ‘Discussion.’

 

The non-binary teen chuckles nefariously, earning a few odd looks from the other people around him.

 

He steps lightly as he crosses the area that once started one of the biggest ghost fights he’d ever been a part of. That… _thing_ on the bike that knocked over the kid and prompted Li to toss a nearby _maneki-neko_ at it, only to see it phase straight through like it was just a ghost…

 

Turns out, it really _was_ a ghost, one that liked to chase Li all across Amity Park. He’d ended up at Danny Fenton’s house, praying to the high heavens that the kid’s nickname – Ghost Boy – held water. In the end, he’d gotten a splitting headache, and had stolen away with an unconscious Danny on Dũng’s moped. But the ghost was gone thanks to that unconscious kid, and that was all that mattered.

 

Li had, of course, bought the shop a new decorative lucky cat to replace the one he’d impulsively thrown and subsequently broke. The strangest part was that the shop, constantly full of merchandise, was never manned. It was empty. All of the time. And cold. _All of the time._

 

Even now, simply by passing the shop with the glimmering new _maneki-neko_ on its single window sill, Li could feel the soft buffering of cold air from within. It was almost as if the place was a freezer of some sort, now carved out and left open to the elements, and yet never disturbed.

 

He rubs the back of his neck and speeds up, taking care to visually ignore the existence of the knick-knack shop. Outside was a payment box, but Li has never seen anyone put anything in it, much less go in or out of the shop’s nearly opaque glass door.

 

Li lets out a breath of air, finally popping out of the market district and into the proper residential district. Dũng’s apartment building was a soft blue with white trim, several plants hanging off of the many open or closed balconies. Someone was sitting in a lawn chair and reading on the topmost floor, and Li waves kindly up at them when their eyes meet his.

 

Thankfully, the observing owner of the top floor’s suite does nothing but stare placidly as Li forgoes the use of the first level door and deftly climbs his way up to the third floor landing, vaulting over the black metal railing with only a small amount of effort.

 

Dũng sits inside on a laptop, no doubt completing some online college coursework. He was halfway on the green bed and hallway off, white blankets tangling around one foot like he hadn’t thought to even get up all of the way that morning before pulling out his computer.

 

Li zips in like a bee, barely giving Dũng any time to react before he’s slapping the laptop closed and tossing it somewhere in the great beyond (it lands softly on some pillows. He’s not a _total_ monster when he gets like this.)

 

Dũng looks up in time to see the flat grin plastered on his little brother’s face. There is blatant fear in his deep brown eyes.

 

“So,” Li claps their hands together, blinking twice and never letting their grin fall for the full unnerving effect. “How’s that girlfriend you keep talking about but never actually have any proof of knowing?”

 

Dũng gives them a look that just screams ‘oh hell no.’

 

“Come on,” Li schmoozes, leaning closer and getting in Dũng’s personal space. The other man only rolls his eyes and lets it happen, mouth pulling slightly to the side to show the bare essentials of his emotions. “You can’t just tell me ‘oh yeah by the way I’m dating girls now’ and then never introduce me! Who are they? What are they like? How long have you been toge – “

 

Dũng stops their rapid-fire questioning with a wave of his big brown hands, signaling that he was about to start signing.

 

‘More Than One’ Dũng signs out, his lips all puckered and reluctant, though there is the lightest amount of ruby colored dust on the tips of his wide ears.

 

Li’s mouth opens, but he doesn’t say anything, only leaving his jaw hanging. Two!? Dũng was dating _two people!?_

 

“And you never told meeeee!?” Li whines, rocking back and forth on the bed before halting with anticipation at Dũng’s moving hands.

 

‘Yin and Hoa’ Dũng spells out using slow English letters.

 

Li hits the proverbial roof.

 

“Oh, my gosh!” The sixteen year old squeaks. “Oh my god!  I fucking knew you had a hand in them getting together; I just didn’t know you had _this_ big of a hand.” Li waggles their eyebrows crudely, causing Dũng to scoff, roll his eyes, and get up to stomp off.

 

“No, wait, come back, I love youuu!” LI crows with a laugh, rolling off of the bed and skipping after their older brother. “This is great, big broski! Now I can buy Hoa that stupid weed shirt and not feel bad about it because you’ll protect me if she tries to kill me!”

 

Dũng, apparently able to hear Li’s high-pitched excitement even without his hearing aids in, looks behind his characteristically bare shoulder with a dubious expression as if to say ‘no, I won’t.’

 

Whatever more the younger brother could have been prepared to say is interrupted by a muffled version of ‘Dancing Queen.’

 

As Li fishes around in his pant pockets for their phone, Dũng lumbers by with a callous-handed hair ruffle.

 

 _“Jot.”_ Li spits out playfully, going to stand in the kitchen to that Dũng wouldn’t accidentally be constantly looking over his shoulder in confused awareness every time Li makes a high-pitched noise.

 

True to his caution, Li makes a happy, excited if not anxious noise in his throat as he answers the phone, pressing the flat orange device with the fluorescent bunny charm hanging off of it to his ear. “Hey there Ghost Boy, how’s it goin’ on your end of the _spectrum?”_

 

The non-binary teen muffles a laugh at the surprised chuckle from the other end of the line. _Gay_ jokes. Between _gays._ So fucking hilarious.

 

“Oh, nothing much, I just – “ there was a concerning crashing noise, but Danny only groans as if mildly inconvenienced. There are also several sounds that seem almost as if they were of something being hit repeatedly… “Just wanted to get out of the house for a while. Wanna hang out?”

 

Li plasters a thin smile on his slightly befuddled face despite there being no need to physically keep up appearances. “Sure thing! I’m open today.”

 

“Cool,” Danny says a bit breathlessly. There’s the sound of what might be a miniature jet plane taking off, crackling across the speaker and making Li think of sound effects from _The Twilight Zone._ “Awesome. Wanna meet me halfway?”

 

“See you then, _ahgi,”_ Li replies amicably, hanging up and staring down at his phone with blank eyes and a running mind.

 

Li knows that there was something… _different_ about Danny Fenton. It had started with the complicated gooey feelings that he gets when he finds a new favorite person, the ones that made him roll down a hill and into a disgusting pond with the short freshman. But then between one weekend and the next, Danny had… changed. Somehow, in some way, that Li still couldn’t completely identify.

 

Now, Danny was different in ways that even the internet couldn’t describe at fruitless 3am searches fueled by coffee and hints of desperation. It was in the way his eyes moved from one object to the next, the way his limbs flowed with his base in new synchronization, something that Li had never seen on anyone else.

 

At first, they brushed it off as their feelings getting the best of them. Maybe they were putting Danny on too much of a pedestal; surely no one could move so lithely, whose eyes seemed to glow and pierce and whose senses were constantly at a peak. The pale pallor of the latino boy's skin had morphed into something more fitting, his blemishes and bloody nicks disappearing like magic, then reappearing days later, the cycle repeating.

 

The most telling of all was the way that Danny would sometimes physically _shift,_ as if settling into a new body. His stance would widen, his eyebrows pulling down and his expression hardening into something almost frightening. His eyes would be the spotlights that Li would follow, most of the time pointing out some sort of overlooked transgression in the near distance.

 

 _‘There was an accident in the lab,’_ Li recalls Danny’s words that one weekend seeming so far ago now, warbling weak voice fuzzing over the receiver with tones of disbelief hinting at heavy dissociation. _‘Something happened to me down there.’_

 

 _But what, Danny?_ Li begs his mind desperately. _What happened to you? How did you change?_ Why _did you change?_

 

Dũng looks at him with slight concern as he says nothing in farewell, vaulting out of the window in a mimicry of his older brother’s trained strength. He looks back briefly to see Dũng hanging out in the window with that same concerned expression. The person still sitting out on the top floor waves a two-fingered salute at him that he doesn’t return.

 

 

* * *

 

 

It’s when Li is sure that he has at least half an hour or more of walking to reach the halfway point between the Fenton’s house and Chinatown does he find himself leaping away from the end of dark alley at a disembodied voice saying “Hey.”

 

Shrieking, mace already uncapping and in his hand, Li fires at the silhouette, the spray hitting – the red brick wall where the person’s head used to be.

 

Uh oh.

 

“Whoa, Li!” They say, putting their hands up in defense as Li whips around to stare openly at _Danny_ who was very suddenly _right there._ “Didn’t mean to scare you.”

 

Danny blinks those big blue doe eyes, causing the heart pounding in Li’s chest to calm somewhat.

 

“Oh, it’s…” Li breathes in, consoling himself with just how _odd_ that entire event had been. “It’s fine!” Pause. “How did you get here so fast?”

 

Danny looks mildly guilty and caught ( _why?_ ) for a hot second before it’s quickly smoothed over with a sheepish if unconcerned expression. “Oh, I ran. I was sort of around here anyway.” He rubs the back of his neck – and incredibly telling sign for anyone who knows him.

 

 _Well,_ Li concedes, _he does look windswept._ It was weak justification and they know it.

 

Danny’s hair was looking a lot like the business end of a toilet brush, sticking up every which way. His bangs weren’t being bangs so much as extra layers, nearly spiking straight up. It makes it look more like he’d stuck his head out of a speeding car than running.

 

In fact, he wasn’t even winded. Not a bit.

 

…but, to give the little fourteen year old some credit, Danny had been apparently getting in shape lately. Then again, to run from Fentonworks, or somewhere in their general area, all the way here, and beat Li, who was barely out of the outskirts of Chinatown, meant that Danny was _really_ getting in shape.

 

There is an awkward pause in which Danny stands very still, Li staring down at him with a blank expression.

 

The tense atmosphere is dispelled when Li casually flings an arm around Danny’s shoulders, pulling the short freshman in the direction he just came from. “Well, I can’t blame you. Who wouldn’t want to spend some more time with _me?”_ Que the dramatic theme music, please.

 

Danny snorts, looking up at Li was a jokingly dubious expression, but keeping quiet as he allows himself to be dragged into the market district of Chinatown. His baby blue eyes get as wide and excited as they always have when coming here, causing Li to douse him with a cloyingly affectionate expression.

 

Pooled together, they both end up having a budget of $27. Li goes about teaching Danny just how much so little can get them in Chinatown, first taking him to a little Vietnamese eatery that their brother swore by. They each get a piled high bowl of phở, something that Li makes sure to get Danny to appreciate all of. That boy might’ve been turning into a body of wiry muscles, but he was still entirely too thin to be healthy.

 

They end up at some of the clothing stores that had super cheap bargain bins, causing Li to have thoughts about how Danny’s ugly, frumpy style had inspired Li’s own clothing today – _can’t say that or else Danny will think I'm creepy_ – shoving off the doubts in his mind as he compliments his shorter friend’s sense of style. He earns more dubious scoffs and banter in return.

 

Li’s makes sure to give what appears to be a white person cosplaying a _very wide_ berth when the two non-white high schoolers are traversing. It brings them a few steps too close to that store that has the new _maneki-neko_ in the front window.

 

Li startles when what feels like a puff of icy cold air slides across the back of their hand, the one laying across Danny’s shoulder and occasionally brushing up against his cheek. The younger teen has his head turned towards the store with the lightly frosted air curling out, eyes bright and locked on like a predator’s.

 

The Korean boy brushes the odd bout of cold air off as coming from the store. “That’s where I first saw that were-cat ghost on the bike. You know, the one you valiantly rescued me from, Ghost Boy?”

 

Danny hums, eyebrows scrunching. “Zippy-doo-da?”

 

Li takes whatever the fuck that was in stride. “Yeah, that sounds like a good name for it.”

 

Trust Danny to come up with the outlandish idea to _name_ the ghosts he comes across. Li doesn’t even want to _think_ about where else he could’ve possibly gotten it from.

 

Danny hums again, eyes narrowing as if searching for something. He bites his lip before turning to Li, dislodging the arm. “Hey, Li, mind buying me something from that snack cart over there?”

 

Li follows Danny’s pointed arm to see a snack cart across the road selling grilled meat on sticks. He doesn’t bother saying something like ‘but we just ate,’ jumping at the chance of getting any sort of food into the small freshman.

 

“You got it!” Li agrees, ruffling the black hair in front of him and earning a scowl. “Be right back, _ahgi._ Don’t get into any trouble while I’m gone, _capiche?”_

 

The tall sophomore jogs across the road to the snack cart, fishing out his wallet and giving the vendor interested eyes to let them know that he was going to purchase something.

 

He abandons the task at the sound of screams, whipping around to stare uncomprehendingly as the store he _literally just left Danny standing_ at goes up in glowing green smoke.

 

“Shit,” Li curses brutally, making his way through the panicking crowd to try and get back to his friend. “Danny! Danny, where are you!”

 

His only answer is from the front door of the cold knick-knack shop flying off, narrowly missing hitting people and allowing even more of that worryingly discolored smoke to escape.

 

Several phones go off, some people sticking around to start recording, crouching behind objects like this is an exciting event to observe rather than a dangerous war zone needing to be avoided. In the middle of it all is a sobbing child.

 

Li pulls up short, finding his gaze torn between searching the crowd some more and staying on the child. They look scared, pitiful, and abandoned. His heart quivers with indecision.

 

Help a random person, or his favorite person?

 

Random person? Favorite person?

 

Child? Danny?

 

Holy shit! _H-o-l-y s-h-i-t_ did he hate himself sometimes.

 

“Hey!” Li calls to the child, scooping them up without further ado. “You’re okay, you’re okay, I’ve got you – “

 

Several cries of shock erupt from those left, causing Li to hunker down behind an overturned pile of electronic parts, clutching the child to his chest as he takes sneaky peeks from around his flimsy shelter.

 

Phantom dances with what seems to be an entirely too large _maneki-neko_ , its hissing, spitting yowls echoing over the area like harbingers of doom. The skinny glowing green ghost-boy only bellows a laugh in response, shooting it down with a theatrical yawn.

 

“If you wanted so badly to be a kitten chow Popsicle,” Phantom calls mockingly, his echoing and yet strangely human and boyish voice easily being heard from Li’s position. “All you had to do was ask for it right _meow!”_

 

Somebody groans, slapping their palm to their face, and Li shares their sentiments. What a terribly corny joke to say during a fight with a giant evil ghost cat.

 

Amity Park’s ‘resident ghost hero’, everybody.

 

Soon, the two battling ghosts are consumed by the growing green smog, but from the sounds of it, the fight was over with that last blast from Phantom. People begin to cautiously creep out from their hiding spots, some going closer to the wreckage of the mystery store with phones raised.

 

The child that Li had nearly forgotten wriggles in his arms violently, causing him to drop them with a gasp. “Hey - !” He watches helplessly as the child scampers off into a nearby alley, the visage of them disappearing much too quickly to be believed.

 

Was that a _feather_ in their wide brimmed hat - ?

 

“Whoops,” Danny speaks up suddenly, appearing beside them worryingly fast, crouching behind the boxes full of surely broken stuff as if he’d _been there the whole time._ “Sorry about that. I sort of just… ran as soon as I saw the ghost.”

 

Li silently gawps at Danny as the teen shoves a glowing green Fenton Thermos into his bag, blue eyes swiveling around to stare into Li’s so very knowingly, imploringly, while his mouth says innocently “Are you okay?”

 

He can’t help it. Li lets out a whimpering breath, collapsing onto the crouched Danny into a hug that gives him a very good view of the spot of ectoplasm sitting comfortably on the freshman’s bare skin.

 

A speck of evidence that he wishes desperately he had never found.

 

Li swipes it off with his finger, spreading the goo around and ignoring the burning sensation it brings as it slowly eats away at his skin. “I’m just glad that you’re okay,” he says evasively as he wipes the glowing green acid onto the knee of his pants, hoping that it wouldn’t eat its way through his clothes.

 

Danny hesitates a moment, obviously confused at the light touch on his neck, but returns the hug nevertheless. “Sorry.”

 

Unsaid words pass between them as Danny doesn’t explain just _what_ he’s sorry for, exactly. Someone from the lingering crowd takes a picture of the embracing kids, no doubt going to post it online for sympathy views without their consent, but Li doesn’t seem to care right now.

 

 _Denial,_ their mind whispers with ill-intentions, _isn’t just a river in Egypt._

 

Li brushes that part of himself off, as he is prone to doing lately when it comes to all things Danny Fenton, pressing a hard kiss to the side of Danny’s face that causes the younger teen to pull in a sharp breath. He drags the boy upwards, starting down the street going… anywhere but here, really.

 

The two eventually begin speaking again, breaching the awkward air by starting off talking smack about Wesley Weston.  Danny evades the subject of ‘Weston’s new stalking habit’ like a champ, making Li even _more_ suspicious of the red-head’s rocky relationship with the transgender teen, but not anymore willing to pry than two days ago.

 

Danny acts like he has nothing to hide, but Li knows better. It’s in the way that he smiles, and in the way that he frowns, too. How his eyes meet everything with new purpose, new light.

 

Li can’t help the jealously that rears its ugly head sometimes. He’s not surprised when it comes to that; he’s envious of people all of the time. But suddenly Danny Fenton’s got the spark that he’s wanted for a long time now…

 

None of this inner turmoil shows on his face as he walks Danny home – _yes, all of the way home, Mr. I’m going to run off in the middle of a ghost attack_ – doubling back for a long, long walk full of introspection and a warring head space.

 

When he gets home, Mayat is still at her easel, looking as if she hasn’t moved an inch since he left, so he makes her a pot of her favorite black tea and a sandwich, disappearing into his room with nary a word and the air of a troubled teenager that has his foster mother shaking her head fondly in his wake.

 

When he gets to his room, he sweeps an arm over his low-sitting altar to clear it of debris, crouching down in front of it to retrieve a small glass jar. It is labeled with one of the names of his sophomore friends. He smiles at it momentarily… before unscrewing the metal lip and chucking its watery contents out the window precisely into a small burn pile in the side yard.

 

 _She has been getting too bold lately,_ Li justifies his actions with, returning to his spot at the altar to sit cross-legged in front of it.

 

He selects one of his bigger pink shells, burning sage slowly within its hard confines as he sets about building a new witch bottle. In it he puts as much protection and love as he can, mental prowess focused and yet numb at the same time. He uses a portion of his naturally collected rain water to fill it with, screwing on the cap and watching as its incandescent contents swirl with buoyancy.

 

Li slots a small tear of masking tape on the side, black ink pen poised to write when he pauses. A gut feeling. He acts on it.

 

When Li finally lays down in his bed for some much needed sleep, there is a new jar sitting on the window ledge labeled ‘DANNY PHANTOM.’

 

 

If anyone were to ask, he’d just tell them that it’s best to let sleeping dogs lie… until you can’t ignore them anymore, that is.

.

**Author's Note:**

> What context is this? I don't know. When does this happen? Sometime between Danny getting his powers and meeting Vlad, which is, like, a 'major plot point' or whatever. Also sometime after he tosses Wes into the trashcan.
> 
> So, the big question is: Does Li know that Danny is Phantom? The answer to that is both yes and no. Li knows SOMETHING, he just doesn't understand what that something is. He's willing to just kind of... let Danny be Danny, whatever the hell that entails. He isn't out to question it like, say, Jazz (or lol wes) is. All he wants to do is be around Danny as support.


End file.
